Tag Archives: birds

I spent the past weekend camping at Roper Lake, a beautiful state park in the southeastern part of Arizona. The weather was wonderful, sunny and warm – very different from some of the more recent trips I’ve been on.

I was amazed by all the different birds residing there; a flock of yellow-headed blackbirds, redwing blackbirds, cardinals, vermillion flycatchers, black ducks, doves, and others that I didn’t see or couldn’t identify. One evening I walked over to the lake and recorded these wonderful creatures as they began to settle for the evening.The only sound I didn’t capture was the deep “ribbits” of the bullfrogs. They sang all night!

I wanted to share the video here, but the file type is not allowed on WordPress…(unless I upgrade to a paid version.)

But here are some photos I took on the way home. I absolutely love the ocotillos when they are in bloom, and now is the season! I should create a journal of “photos through a dirty windshield”, which is what these were taken through. It seems I take a LOT of photos from the passenger seat!

I’ve been in this location now for about a week and a half. It has been fun to acquaint myself with the ‘family’ that includes four cats, Rufy, Wishbone, Snowball, and Katy. Over last weekend I had the opportunity to get ‘close’ to them while watching a movie while the family was gone.

Snowball was known as just a barn cat that wasn’t at all interested in humans. Well he surprised everyone. He was very affectionate and just couldn’t get enough rubbing under his chin. Rufy made me laugh when she began to bite my hair and lick it clean while I sat on the sofa, with her behind me. Wishbone came for a lap visit as well, and Katy sat ‘in charge’ of the desk chair in the office.

When the family returned home on Sunday afternoon they brought me some yellow and purple violas. It was mother’s day, afterall, and they’d stopped to get some hanging plants for their front porch. So I placed them tentatively in the planter box near my site (there’s a box at each site). Today I finally got them all into the ground, spread out to other boxes as well.

Over the last week I’ve been keeping the hummingbird feeder filled, about once a day, for the hummers that have been visiting. I am so amused by them! There is one, a fat one, that ‘protects’ the stash, especially if it’s getting low. He or she chases off the other hummers, and every once in a while while that one’s busy, another sneaks in for a drink.

And then there’s Cochise, a gelded Arabian/Pinto, three years old. He’s in training. There are three other horses that are being pastured at another place close by. While the family was gone they brought down one of the older mares, Cookie, to keep Cochise calm. When she was first put in the corral, she talked to the other horses into the night, as if to say, “Hey! I miss you guys. They put me here to babysit the youngster, and I’d rather be playing with you!”

I fed the horses each morning and evening. On the first morning, there was Cochise outside the corral, eating the grass, as if to say, “You didn’t get here in time, and the grass was greener on this side.” I put the hay inside the corral and opened the gate. It didn’t take much encouragement for Cochise to enter to get his hay.

Since the weekend Cookie has been taken back to pasture with the other horses. Cochise has been put into his own grass area, and is enjoying eating the dandelion heads, and there are thousands!

I’ve noticed a lot of birds, and more different varieties showing up every day. The other wayward child, Dakota, went off the other day to check out a pair of geese who were honking as they waded in the river.

While it’s generally quiet, it is very active here with all the different kinds of ‘wild’ life.